To meet an increasing capacity requirement in future, a heterogeneous network (HetNet for short) becomes a necessity for future network development. In the heterogeneous network, multiple micro base stations are deployed for a macro base station. By deploying the micro base stations for the macro base station, a system throughput can be improved. However, inter-cell interference is also brought to the heterogeneous network by introducing the micro base station. For example, when user equipment (UE for short) connected to a micro base station is located in a cell range expansion (CRE for short) area of a micro cell, the macro base station interferes with a downlink channel for the UE. Therefore, the macro base station sets some subframes as almost blank subframes (ABS for short). When the UE needs to receive downlink data from the micro base station, the micro base station uses the ABS to send the downlink data to the UE, and the macro base station does not use the ABS.
When the UE connected to the macro base station is moving towards a micro cell, the micro cell approached by the UE may be referred to as a neighboring cell of the UE, and the UE needs to measure neighboring cell RRM. To ensure an accurate result of measuring the neighboring cell RRM by the UE, the macro base station predefines a neighboring cell measurement subset, and the neighboring cell measurement subset is a subset of the ABS. When the UE needs to measure the neighboring cell RRM, the macro base station selects some subframes from the ABS to form a neighboring cell measurement subset, and sends the neighboring cell measurement subset to the UE. The UE measures the neighboring cell RRM on a subframe included in the neighboring cell measurement subset.
Although interference caused by the macro base station to measuring the neighboring cell RRM by the UE can be reduced in the existing method for measuring the neighboring cell RRM, when micro base stations are densely distributed, the micro base station also influences a result of measuring the neighboring cell RRM by the UE.